This invention relates in general to mobile military vehicles, and, more specifically, to a vehicle which is highly resistant to the blast overpressure, wind and radiation affects of a nearby nuclear detonation.
In order to maintain a credible deterrent to nuclear attack, it is necessary that retaliatory forces survive a nuclear "first strike" with the capability of responding. A major problem is protecting intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM's) and their associated control equipment against such a first strike. Fully hardened silos and the like for land-based ICBM's are generally effective, but only at great cost. Also, the degree of hardening, may become insufficient with improvements in accuracy and power of the "first-strike" weapons.
In order to limit the ability to accurately target retaliatory missiles, various mobile missile concepts have been proposed. Generally, the missile is moved among a number of fixed, hardened protection enclosures. Unfortunately, the number of enclosures is limited by their high cost, and it is becoming possible to simultaneously attack a large number of such enclosures using multiple independent reentry vehicles (MIRV).
Armored missile-carrying vehicles have been proposed which are either road mobile or helicopter carried. However, these have proved to be very large, heavy and cumbersome. Also, they tend to be easily overturned or blown away by the blast winds resulting from otherwise-survivable nuclear detonations in the vicinity.
The commonly proposed solution for the blast wind problem is to tie the vehicle down or to extend struts or outriggers. These are impractical because there is generally insufficient time to stop the vehicle and engage tie-downs or extend struts, the tie-down anchors must be already in place with the capability to withstand loads in the 100,000 pound range, and struts would be prohibitively long and heavy. Attempts have been made to seal structures to the ground and/or fasten them between spaced walls to help resist nearby nuclear blasts. These structures, while increasing blast resistance somewhat, have not been entirely satisfactorily mobile, could not reach the protected status quickly and resist blast waves only to a limited degree.
Thus, there is a continuing need for a hardened mobile vehicle for ICBM's or the like which can be easily moved on-or off-road and which can resist the effects of nearby nuclear detonations.